In this article I explain my A-Z LinkedIn Lead Generation guide and show you the exact steps for finding hot leads, reaching out to them, and making sure you have a system in place to turn those warm leads into qualified sales.
Related Articles
I show you how to research leads through LinkedIn, how to build your company’s presence on the platform and provide useful resources on creating relationships with those who matter most.
If you want to attract new leads using engaging content, read on.
Table of Contents
- Why should you use LinkedIn to generate leads for your business
- Why you should optimize your LinkedIn profile
-
How to reach out to potential customers on LinkedIn
- Reach out via LinkedIn search
- Reach out to LinkedIn group members
- Generating leads with writing better outreach messages
- How to get inbound leads by becoming a LinkedIn Content Creator
-
Tim Queen’s Multiple Touchpoint Approach
- It’s not enough to be on LinkedIn.
- How to do content marketing on LinkedIn
-
How to create and share high-quality content on LinkedIn
- What you can share on LinkedIn.
- How to create an email list on LinkedIn
- How to use your personal LinkedIn profile to generate leads
- How to get leads by engaging in LinkedIn groups
- Why you should create your own LinkedIn group
- How to promote your LinkedIn page in your group
- How to engage with your LinkedIn audience
- Get your team involved to generate more leads on LinkedIn
- How to promote your LinkedIn page on your website
- How to generate leads with your email signature
- How to promote your page to your email list
- How to promote your LinkedIn page on other social media networks
- How to promote your LinkedIn content with ads
- Conclusion
Spoiler alert: In this gigantic piece about LinkedIn lead generation, I go into details on how you can integrate this number one B2B platform to your other marketing tools and channels.
So, make sure that you bookmark this article so you can (re)read it later at a more leisurely pace.
Why should you use LinkedIn to generate leads for your business
Over the last couple of years, LinkedIn has evolved from a boring CV database to a thriving community of more than 500 million members around the world. And more than 100,000 new people join the network every single day.
LinkedIn has a very active user base.
More than 50% of all #LinkedIn users log in at least once per month.
Even better:
More than 40% of monthly active #LinkedIn users log in every single day!
The quality of LinkedIn members is also very high.
More than 20% of all #LinkedIn users are senior-level influencers and decision makers.
Unlike traditional sales methods such as call calling and door to door sales, there are no gatekeeper on LinkedIn. This makes it much easier to get in touch with decision makers.
There are only two ways how you can generate leads on LinkedIn:
- You can contact people who match your ideal customer type.
- You can create great content that your ideal customer type loves to read and then let them contact you.
In this article I show you how to implement each approach.
Why you should optimize your LinkedIn profile
It doesn’t matter if you want to contact people directly, create great content or combine the best of both methods. You will not make any sales if your LinkedIn profile isn’t optimized.
So, let’s have a look at your profile and make sure that you have a professional headshot photo, an impressive header image, a good LinkedIn headline and description and easily readable text in all sections.
On top of that, don’t forget to tap into the latest 2021 LinkedIn feature, the LinkedIn Video Cover Stories, where you can upload a 30-second video intro to give others a glimpse of who you are.
Recommended resources on how to optimize your LinkedIn profile:
- How to get started on LinkedIn
- Best LinkedIn Headlines Cheatsheet
- LinkedIn Cover Stories – a 30-second video intro
How to reach out to potential customers on LinkedIn
There are two ways how to find ideal customers on LinkedIn.
You can use the LinkedIn search tool and search by role titles, location, profile keywords, and industries. Or you can search by specific interest by joining or creating LinkedIn groups.
Reach out via LinkedIn search
The search tool is fairly straightforward. You can open the search by clicking into the search field at the top left of your screen, or by clicking the following link: LinkedIn Search.
If you know someone’s name, you can search by first and last name.
If you’re targeting a specific role title, type it into the title field.
Searching by company name might appear a little confusing because LinkedIn is offering you two options: Company and Current companies. The field at the top will search for current and past employees, while the field at the bottom will only include people who currently work in that company.
The connections checkboxes allow you to search by closeness. 1st level connections are people you are already connected to, 2nd level connections are friends of your friends and 3rd level is everyone else.
If you want to get an introduction through a former classmate, enter your school or university name into the school field.
Location allows you to search by cities and countries.
Last but not least, you can limit your search to people who are a direct connection of one specific person. The way how you would use this feature is when you already know one person in a specific company and you want to explore if they would be able to make a specific introduction to someone else in the same company.
In most cases, the standard search is enough. If you are looking for more advanced targeting features, you might want to consider upgrading to a LinkedIn Sales Navigator subscription which gives you a couple of additional search features.
Reach out to LinkedIn group members
Sometimes it is not possible to use the search to find your ideal customer by industry or role title. If you require an interest-based approach to qualify potential leads, then LinkedIn groups are the way to go.
You can either join existing groups or create your own group. I recommend focussing on smaller, active and moderated groups.
LinkedIn allows you to send 15 direct messages to fellow group members per month. This works even if you are not connected on LinkedIn.
As a group owner, you have even more options. More about this below.
Generating leads with writing better outreach messages
A lot of people get this wrong. They immediately start to sell in their private message or invitation to connect.
The truth is, nobody, likes these kinds of messages and in case this wasn’t clear, it is totally obvious to everyone, that these messages are sent out in bulk to thousands of people and the only differentiator are placeholders like {{first_name}} and {{company_name}} that are extracted from your profile to create the illusion that someone personalized your message. Don’t do that!
Instead, do your homework and demonstrate that you put in time and effort to learn about the individual circumstances of each individual person you are trying to contact.
In summary, I recommend to start with a value first approach. This requires you to flip roles.
Instead of thinking about what you can get from the other person, think about what you can offer that would be of instant value.
Give 100 away for free, and if it’s well perceived, ask for 10 in return.
Most people are more than happy to return the favour and often over deliver and you end up receiving with way more than the 100 units of value that you gave away freely. 🙂
Generally speaking, start with a low hanging fruit that doesn’t require too much commitment.
It’s the same as with dating.
You will get better results if you start with a small commitment such as having coffee, than with something along the lines of. “Hi, I just noticed you when I walked in. Do you want to marry me?”.
How to get inbound leads by becoming a LinkedIn Content Creator
Today LinkedIn is the number #1 content publishing platform for business content and the best place to start if you want to generate inbound leads for your business.
LinkedIn’s content publishing platform is the best way to generate leads on #LinkedIn.
Being a content creator on LinkedIn has many tangible and intangible benefits. Besides your ability to generate inbound leads for your company:
- You’ll meet many awesome people!
- Some of them will become business partners.
- You’ll collaborate on new projects.
- Find new customers, employees and sometimes your dream job.
- You’ll be able to get introductions to people you couldn’t have reached by yourself.
- Best of all, you will meet many like-minded people and make incredible friends! 🙂
Succeeding as a content creator on LinkedIn requires discipline, hard work and consistently following a set of same small actions on a daily basis.
Tim Queen’s Multiple Touchpoint Approach
The secret to creating a successful inbound sales funnel that attracts new leads for your business is by following my Multiple Touchpoint Approach.
Today’s customers have a very short attention span and are constantly multitasking. One minute they might be on LinkedIn, the next checking their email, then replying to a message on Facebook and then liking a new photo on Instagram.
People might spend hours on their computer, but only a small fraction of their daily activities might be spent on LinkedIn.
It’s not enough to be on LinkedIn.
If you want to build a successful LinkedIn sales funnel that is constantly generating new leads for your business, you have to be everywhere at once.
- On every social media network
- LinkedIn Page
- LinkedIn Profile
- LinkedIn Group
- LinkedIn Hashtag
- Facebook Page
- Facebook Group
- Instagram TV / IGTV
- Periscope
- YouTube
- Twitch
- Medium
- Vimeo
- You need to have a website
- You have to show up on page one on every search engine
- You need to have an email list
- You have to get people on the phone
- Meet them in-person at events and in one-to-one meetings
LinkedIn and its content marketing platform is one of the best ways to start your journey to create as many touch points as possible.
How to do content marketing on LinkedIn
Many one-person businesses only rely on their personal profile, when it comes to publishing amazing content on LinkedIn.
I highly recommend to not do that! Instead:
Create a #LinkedIn company page, even if you’re just a team of one.
It will come in very handy as you continue to grow and is even more powerful when you get your entire team involved.
How to create and share high-quality content on LinkedIn
One of the best ways how to grow a loyal following for your LinkedIn company page is by publishing and sharing high-quality content on a regular basis.
As a page, you can share five types of content: Text posts, photo posts, video posts, link posts, and stories. Articles can only be created by personal LinkedIn accounts, but your company page can share them.
What you can share on LinkedIn.
Focus on sharing content that was created by either yourself, someone from your team/company, existing/potential clients and industry news. Avoid sharing content from competitors, unless you want to send leads their way. 😉
Keep a good content ratio on #LinkedIn. 80% to 90% high-quality content, and 10-20% promotional!
- Text only
- Opinion pieces
- Industry news
- Photos
- Infographics
- Native videos
- Share texts, photos, video, articles that were published by employees and team members on their personal profile.
- Articles from your personal or company blog.
- Articles that you published on social media platforms such as Medium.
- Articles that were written by yourself or someone from your team and published on editorial websites, newspapers and magazines.
- Articles that praise existing or potential clients
- Videos that you published on YouTube, Vimeo or Periscope.
- Events
- Announcements
- (2021 latest) LinkedIn Stories – the perfect channel to give your audience a glimpse into the personal side of the business
Great #LinkedIn content is both educational and entertaining at the same time.
Optimize your content for your ideal customer type while keeping it relevant for everyone else.
Here is why.
If you’re too broad, you’re content will be relevant for everyone. If it’s relevant for everyone, you’ll grow a mixed audience.
The next time you publish something to attract new leads for your business, the first 10 people who see it, might not be part of your ideal customer avatar at all.
Lack of relevance increases the likelihood of low engagement, which in return will cripple the reach of your content.
The LinkedIn algorithm will just think that it was a bad post and kill it off quickly.
Rotate and mix up different content themes and topics on #LinkedIn.
On the other hand, if you make your content slightly more relevant to your ideal audience but also explain everything in a way that has useful takeaways for everyone else, you ensure that whoever sees your content first has a much higher likelihood of engaging with your content.
As a consequence, the LinkedIn algorithm will think that you created a good post and will show it to more people.
More people means, your post has a higher chance of popping up in the newsfeed of your ideal customers, and this is how you win! 🙂
To help get your post spread far and beyond, remember to add in around 3 to 5 relevant hashtags in your post. If you are unsure how LinkedIn hashtags work, I highly recommend my complete “LinkedIn Hashtag Master Guide” for your reading.
If you want to learn how to create content that is both highly specific for your ideal audience and broad enough to create maximum engagement, join my LinkedIn Accelerator Program that allows you to train up your entire sales and marketing team to do exactly that.
How to create an email list on LinkedIn
As great as LinkedIn is, at the end of the day you have no control over the LinkedIn newsfeed algorithm. And who knows, maybe one day LinkedIn does the same as what Facebook did with their company pages and makes it pay-to-play.
To stay ahead of the curve and to make yourself immune against any algorithm or platform changes, I highly recommend that you start to build an email list on LinkedIn.
Here is how you do it:
- Create a really cool article on your personal LinkedIn profile or blog
- Create a content upgrade for the article such as
- A downloadable and printable version of your article.
- An ebook with related content.
- A cheat sheet or checklist that summaries the key points of your article.
- A worksheet with fill-in the blanks to practice and implement the recommendations of your article.
- A resource or shopping list.
- A mindmap that visualizes concepts of your article.
- An extended video or audio file, for example of an entire interview.
- Any useful and relevant download.
- Quiz, surveys or tests.
- Whitepaper or case studies.
- Include multiple links into your article that point to a landing page where people can download the content upgrade in exchange for joining your email list.
You can read my entire step by step process in my article on how to create an email list on LinkedIn.
An email list gives you a reliable way of informing your subscribers whenever you published a new piece of content. This way you can create more touch points and thus trust faster.
How to use your personal LinkedIn profile to generate leads
Today, people don’t want to buy from companies, they want to buy from other people.
There is no such thing as B2C or B2B anymore. It’s H2H, human to human. #LinkedIn
That’s the reason why your personal LinkedIn profile is so powerful. It allows you to express your thoughts and opinions on a very personal manner with your readers.
Besides the content types that you can publish on your LinkedIn page such as text, photos, videos and links, you want additional content type on personal LinkedIn profiles: LinkedIn Pulse articles.
Articles allow you to create more in-depth content to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise.
Here is what you can do on you personal profile to generate more leads.
- Create interesting articles as well as text, photo & video posts
- Publish them on your personal profile
- Tag your company page inside your posts by typing @ followed by the name of your company page. Example: Tim Queen & Vivid Talks
- Follow your company page and re-share content that was published on your company page on your personal profile.
How to get leads by engaging in LinkedIn groups
We cannot always target people by role or job title on #LinkedIn, sometimes we have to go by interest.
LinkedIn makes it really easy for us to do exactly that. There are literally thousands of groups on LinkedIn on any imaginable theme and topic.
Naturally, you can join relevant groups that are more likely to attract your ideal customer type and then engage in group activities.
- Engage in discussions
- Answer questions
- Help and support
- Share valuable resources with the group.
Why you should create your own LinkedIn group
A better approach to generate leads on #LinkedIn is creating your own group.
- Chose a very specific interest group that aligns perfectly with your ideal customer avater.
- Create a LinkedIn group with a descriptive title that makes it easy for others to instantly understand what the group is about and why they should join.
- Get some of your team members and employees involved to make up the initial numbers of the group. Nobody wants to join empty groups
- Create clear rules for your group.
- Qualify new members before you allow them to join to avoid mindless spam.
- Moderate content carefully.
- Share valuable content in the group from your company page and personal profiles of yourself and your team/employees.
- Engage in discussions.
- Ask members to recruit new members.
Once you surpass the critical momentum, other members will invite new members and do the acquisition for you.
How to promote your LinkedIn page in your group
Now here is the best part.
You can link your LinkedIn group to your LinkedIn page and vice versa. This gives you another way to grow both your group and your page at the same time.
How to engage with your LinkedIn audience
Creating and sharing content is a good start, but it will get you nowhere if you don’t understand the most important success factor of all.
You have to engage with your #LinkedIn audience, especially with those who comment and share your content!
- Like new comments.
- Reply to comments.
- Thank people when they share your content.
- Start engaging conversations and ask questions. This is one of the best ways to build relationships on LinkedIn.
Many comment conversations turn into private message follow-ups, which turn into future sales!
Get your team involved to generate more leads on LinkedIn
Well done, doing it all by yourself! 🙂
If one person can move mountains, imagine what an entire team can do!
Get your team involved to generate more leads on LinkedIn!
Here are some simple steps that you can do to get your entire company involved in your LinkedIn strategy.
Ask your team to:
- Add your company page to their experience section/jobs section of their personal profile
- Write a detailed description that is both communicating their personal role and activities as well as a good description of what products and services your company has to offer.
- Add media such as photos, video, white papers, links, etc. to their job listing. If you don’t have any company assets for your team to share, create some!!!
- Follow your LinkedIn company page
- Engage with content on your company page including liking, commenting, and sharing relevant updates
- Give you feedback on your shared content to create better and more engaging content in the future.
How to promote your LinkedIn page on your website
You can also promote your LinkedIn page on your website. Just add a follow button on your site, ideally in multiple different locations such as your website footer, blog post sidebar and on your contact page.
How to generate leads with your email signature
Think in terms of multiple touch points. You want to create as many of them as possible.
Instead of just signing off with a boring “Best regards”, why not make use of the screen real estate space by adding a beautiful email signature including a link to your LinkedIn profile and company page to every outgoing email?
A tool such as Wisestamp will do the trick.
You can also add social media buttons to every email newsletter.
Add your #LinkedIn profile to your email signature to generate more leads on @LinkedIn!
Again, not everyone is going to click them, and not every click will result in a new subscriber. You are in it for the long game. One is better than zero. Some of the people who clicked and followed your page will now be able to receive and engage with updates in their LinkedIn newsfeed.
It sometimes just takes one touch point to make a sale. 🙂
How to promote your page to your email list
Instead of sending a link to an article on your website to your email list, share a link to a status update on your company page, which shared the article.
Example:
- Post a link to your blog article on your LinkedIn page
- Click on the three dots at the top right corner and click on copy link to post.
- Share this link in your newsletter.
- Readers will see the visit the following page, where they can instantly follow you page as well as like, comment and share it with their network:
How to promote your LinkedIn page on other social media networks
Many social media networks allow you to share links in your profile. Make sure you place a link to your LinkedIn page on every social media platform.
How to promote your LinkedIn content with ads
If all of these methods didn’t work for you, consider experimenting with Sponsored Content on LinkedIn or create a Follow Campaign with LinkedIn Ads.
These methods are expensive and I only recommend them to anyone where money is no object and if you have no resources to create and to engage with content on LinkedIn.
Conclusion
What do you think? Do you feel more confident that you can generate more leads for your business? Which of my 21 ways on how to generate more leads on LinkedIn did you enjoy the most and which ones will you try out?
If you enjoyed this post, please share it on social media and tag me or my company page so I can personally thank you! 🙂
